Ace Combat Assault Horizon: The Basics

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What's the new Ace Combat bringing to the skies?

By Peter Eykemans

Project Aces is hard at work at a new Ace Combat game. The new title, Assault Horizon, doesn't have a number in its name (this would technically be 7), but that doesn't mean it's not looking interesting. What does this new Ace Combat have in store for players this fall?

What's the Ace Combat series?

Ace Combat is a series that's been in existence for well over a decade. Controlling high-powered fighter jets and other types of airplanes, players take to the skies in explosive combat. It's a hybrid arcade and simulation experience that has spawned 11 different titles so far.

For the first time, Ace Combat Assault Horizon brings helicopters into the equation. This means that the action isn't all taking place above the clouds. Instead, it focuses on ground assault and taking out forces below you. The pacing is slower and more deliberate in these sections, which really changes things from the fly-by mentality of the other games in the series. The helicopter sections also involve on-rails scenarios where the player mans the chopper-mounted gun and lays waste to the forces below.

Project Ace has implemented a new system called "Close Range Assault" that emphasizes up-close duels rather than eliminating opponents at a distance. This in-your-face element is about action and destruction at short range.

Story-wise, Assault Horizon is the second Ace Combat game to label the different factions as real countries (the other being last year's Ace Combat Joint Assault on PSP).

So what is Assault Horizon's story?

Players step into the flight-suit of Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop and fly as part of a NATO task force, stopping insurgency groups throughout Africa. Outside of this blanket task, a renegade Russian pilot named Markov is helping the insurgents with a new weapon called "Trinity."

This is Close Range Assault.

What's going on with multiplayer?

Project Ace and Namco Bandai have confirmed that the story is single-player only, but they're considering the addition of co-op missions as well.

There will be online dogfighting, but we don't know any of the details just yet.